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A review by alexisliner
Lassiter by J.R. Ward
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Rahvyn and Lassiter: I don't really care about them as a couple. And maybe that's on me. I just never really saw Lassiter as a romantic hero, and I can't say that I really got there after having read his book, despite that being a large part of the plot. While I like that he and Rahvyn are sort of evenly matched for power, that seemed to be the only thing they had in common. I've never been one for insta-love; couple that with the fact that I really don't think it's cool for the race's deity to be marrying one of his subjects, even if it's someone as powerful as Rahvyn? It's just not a winning match for me. It just felt superficial the entire time I was reading and for the life of me I couldn't shake that feeling. Believe me I tried. But no dice.
Lash and Devina: Just gross. I don't really care if Devina didn't have a choice in being a demon. I don't care if she occasionally feels guilty about her actions. After following her arc in this series and in the Fallen Angels series, I don't see her as a redeemable character, so I don't know why JR keeps devoting so much page time to her. I didn't mind following Lash as much because he's the true big bad here. But I didn't need to read through all their sexy times. I don't really care what those two evil rapists do during their downtime or if they are falling into some sick version of love. It's not my jam.
What I did not appreciate is that JR glossed over Lash's history so much. I understand that readers who have made it this far in the series already know what happened, but I was expecting a little more emotion from the Brotherhood on that front. It felt like a very clinical summary every time one of the characters was recapping it, which felt off to me. Lash was a good villain originally because he was emotionally tied to the Brotherhood, and while he's definitely still a powerful baddie in the here and now, he might as well have been pulled out of thin air for this. In fact, he was. By a magic spell. (I'll be back for this and the rest of the magic system, hold that thought) In Lover Arisen the Brotherhood's reaction to his return was basically "Oh crap, not this guy again." Very anticlimactic in my opinion, but it made sense because we really didn't have a lot of POV from any of the original cast who was around during his first arc in that book. But this book? Lassiter was there the first go round, Wrath was there. Even Vishous was there (I'll come back for him too, hold that thought again). But no, not a single passing thought for "Man that was rough last time. I wonder how John Matthew or Xhex or even Qhuinn are taking the news that he's back." Or a "I was there when those three characters heard the news. That was rough." I guess it wasn't technically required but it's just something that was nagging me. It's not believable to me that three years was enough for any of those characters to move so far past the events of that first Lash arc that they aren't the least bit emotionally triggered by this turn of events. So ignoring it just rubs me wrong, even if it would've eaten up some page space.
Following that same train of thought, I fell in love with this series primarily for the main cast of characters (think books 1-13ish) and I think I'm just tired of logging hours reading these latest installments and not really seeing them (Vishous, keep holding buddy - I have words for you). They'll be there in the background, but damn if I could tell you what they were thinking or doing. They may as well be cardboard stand-ins for all the emotional connection readers have had with them. It's like JR carts them out just to prove that this is in fact the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, like a little flash of an ID badge so she can keep walking and talk to us about whichever random people she wants to. Girl if you're done telling the Brotherhood's story just say so. Because it's exhausting to keep showing up only to leave underwhelmed. The last time I felt any real connection to the original cast was in The Savior. Maybe The Sinner, but as I've never been much of a Butch girly I wasn't super attached to that one. (Is this the part where the fans come for me with pitchforks? I'm one of you I swear, please just let me feel my feelings!)
Vishous: I know I just went on a rant about how the OG Brothers don't show up anymore. That does not apply to Vishous. So I have a whole different rant about him. My complaint about V is that he is freaking everywhere. If there's any point where JR needs a Brother to show up to move the plot forward, he's the one selected. And it's so annoying. The woman has about 20 male leads to choose from at this point who are all more than qualified to be doing something helpful/important at any given time but nah, this guy does it all. Give me a break, I am begging you. I don't think of myself as a Vishous hater but please, share the spotlight my man. I've been trying so hard to be patient the past few books, but he keeps popping up every time I turn around. I know he has some truly rabid fangirls out there, so I get why she'd want to give them some face time with him. Fine. But he has become insufferable at this point. This is not the chronicles of V, it's the BDB. I think the only other two prior leads who got any substantial roles in this book were Wrath, because he had the B-plot, and Tohr. Every other time it was just random name drops. Like a little BDB role call. How cute. Not.
The Power Balance: Do you remember when the main focus of this series was romance? Because, well, it was a paranormal romance series. Now I know some will argue that this series has long since morphed into an urban fantasy/PNR hybrid (and I am one of them!) but the relationships always remained at the core. The love stories were the heart of the book. If anything, the fighting against the lessers was the least interesting part. But our cast of heroes are warriors and thus need some big evil to fight, so sure. Makes sense for them to be here. But then we got Lover Unveiled and the tone decidedly shifted. Now it's all been very much action based, which is fine except JR seems determined to keep up the guise that this is a PNR series. The end result being that we get relationships that kind of fall flat (in my opinion). I could go into more detail, but I won't. You can see my comments above on Lassiter's HEA, and my comments on the others in their own book reviews, should you care to know. Suffice it to say, I could care less if any of the couples from books 19 to current ended up together. A far cry from my love for the original cast. So I suppose it's a good thing that we've upped the action, because otherwise we'd have nothing redeeming left. But anyway, let's talk about the action.
Clearly JR decided that she needed to shake things the hell up after the war ended in The Sinner. Even though that seemed like a logical place to end the series, she clearly wasn't ready to say goodbye. Fine, neither was I. So let's go! But the route she's elected to take us on is just insane. The jury is still out on whether that's gonna be for better or for worse. Is she a mastermind, or just off her rocker?
But okay, the OG villain is out. The OG force for good is also out. She's brought in a new version of both; fine. BUT WAIT. There's more! There's a demon who serves no purpose except to cause trouble at every turn, with no real end game in mind except to find "love" with her creepy evil BF. And talk about all her fancy clothes and accessories. And this random super-powerful witch vampire who can jump in and out of time at will, and do a whole bunch of other stuff too? No, you can't have more explanation than that! How dare you ask! Like...whaaat? The magic system in this series is becoming very imbalanced and I don't love it. Yes, the Brotherhood needs something to fight against but what is this mess? They are outmatched and I don't love that some random girl just came in and saved the day out of thin air. Not that females can't save the day too, but in her circumstance it's stretching the reader's suspension of disbelief a little too hard. Why should I believe the stakes are really that high when Rahvyn can conveniently swoop in and find a solution? Even with the big plot twist at the end I wasn't fully in the moment because I just knew JR was about to pull something out of her ass to fix things, in her usual manner. Not that I wasn't happy with the outcome, it just didn't pack quite the emotional punch it was supposed to. Likely because she's retconned every major character death except Wellsie's at this point. So it was just a matter of pushing through to figure out what the end game was. Maybe I am terrible for saying this, but I think I'd have liked the ending better if she'd had the guts to keep Wrath dead. If you aren't going to stick within the bounds of a traditional romance series, and you want me to believe the stakes, you have to kill some darlings at some point. Otherwise it's all talk.
Ultimately, I guess I was expecting this book to knock some of the bigger players off the board so we could get back to some semblance of order at the end of it, but no. They're all still out there, and apparently will have been for 30+ years by the time we get to the next one. It's not making sense to me. I think Lassiter and Rahvyn should have been taken out of play by the end, like maybe they watch over the race from a distance. Lassiter supposedly was in trouble with the Creator at the start of all of this for interfering too much (and to be fair to the Creator: he does. See my comment about the stakes needing to be believable from earlier) and we're supposed to just accept that he went and had a chat about that and got a pass because Devina was out to play, so he should be allowed to be as well? What? Nah, they've all gotta go. Devina should have had to take her happy ass back to hell, where she was still supposed to be anyway after the events of the Fallen Angels series (which was apparently a waste of time to read, since the victory didn't exactly hold up in the long run). Anyway. Lash is a big boy, he's got his army. It should be him vs the Brothers and that's it. Otherwise the Brothers are no longer coming off as the badasses they are supposed to be, because who cares if they take out 10 lessers in a night if they're powerless to take on Devina? There's still way too much going on for such a large time jump to make sense, but I guess we're all buckled in to see how it plays out anyway.
Okay. I think I've exhausted my complaints. I wanna say again, that I didn't completely hate this, despite everything I've said thus far. I enjoyed reading it. The pacing was great, and the action was engaging, even though I had some qualms with the logic in parts. And I'm enough of a fangirl that I will absolutely read the rest of them, because I didn't dedicate this much brain space to this series to dropout now. I'm optimistic that with her moving to talk more about the kids* we'll get more of the focus back on the original cast, which is all I'm really looking for at this point.
*Apropos of nothing, I am rooting for one of the daughters to be bi or lesbian. We've had how many MLM relationships in this series? The singular WLW appearance in the entire BDB universe was a bury your gays fiasco and I demand recompense in the form of a sapphic mating bond. Thank you, carry on.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, and War